“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right
to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

- George Orwell

Is Ben Stein's new movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" a know-nothing polemic ... or ahem, an inconvenient truth? I imagine the movie's debut will stir up quite a lot of response from differing viewpoints, or it may just sink beneath a wave of apathy. Either way, our family is going to see it tonight while we can.



The trailer above certainly poses some interesting questions; among them Stein's observation that every area of our society tolerates freedom of speech (even, or especially, if bizarre — such as the theory that life was "sown" by alien visitors) except when it comes to Intelligent Design, and nowhere is this more vigorously persecuted than in academia (I guess I'd at least question Stein's view that free speech is tolerated in academia given the events at the University of St. Thomas in the last year).

Watching this movie should be an interesting counter-point to a show I happened to come across the other day on the History channel: Life After People. The show speculates on what the earth would be like if all humans suddenly disappeared, using CGI technology to illustrate conditions 30 to 10,000 years after "we're gone." The show was interesting, if somewhat snicker-inducing at how seriously it was taking itself. I found myself following along as each millenia rolled by, revealing what a wonderful place this could be. Somewhere around 1,000 to 2,000 years into the "future" I started to wonder if — with all this abundant life — the show would forecast the evolution of another human race.

In fact, the show did, toward the end, ask the question if whether tool-using primates would evolve into humans, capable of not only looking at the starry night sky but also viewing it with wonder and imagination. The conclusion offered, however, was that, though certain primates may become somewhat more advanced, it was extremely unlikely they would become humans. Soooo...I wonder how the producers of the show figure that humans ever showed up in the first place?

Maybe they could have asked Ben Stein....

UPDATE:
Rich Karlgaard posts his thoughts and encourages comments on a similar theme in his blog today.

Both the blogs and the MSM have been featuring Obama's estimation of why just plain folks seem to not be warming to him in Pennsylvania:

"So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

[Image HT to Gino, via The Lumberjack, who really knows how to get his whacks in.]

While the blogs tend to feature the entire quote, the MSM (or the apologists offering commentary in the MSM) tend to focus on the "bitterness" part of the statement while ignoring the rest of Obama's ignorant statement. I say "ignorant" here not in terms of "stupid" but according to the "lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified" meaning of the word. Essentially, Obama's statement is an ill-informed assumption on his part, based on his experience or world-view. I say it's ignorant because I was reminded of a Pew Research Center study that I blogged about back in 2005 after reading about it on Craig Westover's blog. My post read, in part:

The study suggests that the old political party stereotypes of rich and poor, educated and less-educated no longer hold up as the two major parties now have similar demographics in terms of the distribution in these categories. The primary difference is now along the lines of attitude. From the Washington Post article:

The most striking differences between lower-income Republicans and lower-income Democrats come in their perceptions of the power of the individual. Both Pro-Government Conservatives and Disadvantaged Democrats include a substantial number of people who consider themselves to be struggling financially. Overwhelming majorities in both groups say they often cannot make ends meet.

But where they part company is in their overall sense of optimism, with the Republican group expressing much greater faith in personal empowerment. Three-fourths of the Pro-Government Conservatives agreed that people can get ahead by working hard, and four-fifths agreed that everyone has the power to succeed. Just 14 percent of Disadvantaged Democrats agreed with the first statement, and only 44 percent agreed with the second.

Meanwhile, this faith in one's ability to overcome may be rooted in a greater faith:

For all their similarities on income and education, Enterprisers on the right and Liberals on the left diverge on religious habits and cultural attitudes. For example, almost half of Enterprisers attend religious services at least weekly, while just a fifth of Liberals go to religious services that often. A fifth of Liberals are classified in the Pew study as secular - defined as atheists, agnostics or those who say they have no religious affiliation - compared with about one in 20 of the Enterprisers.

So, the way I put this together is that even though they are about the same in terms of income and education, the group with the more positive view of the future is the one that puts its faith in God and in themselves. The group with the most pessimistic outlook puts its faith in the government.

Which group do you figure already knows who its Savior is, and which one is most likely to turn, in their bitterness and hopelessness, to the next one that happens to come along?

Nevertheless, Obama has proven himself to be nothing if not resilient and adaptable. I expect that once he leaves the high-falutin' San Francisco fund-raising circuit and returns to campaign in Pennsylvania his next quote will be, "Git 'er done!"

Back in January Mitch Berg had a post likening the abortion issue to a ribbon in the middle of a tug-of-war rope, with each side trying to move the ribbon (i.e. public opinion) closer to it's position. Mitch thought he was seeing signs that public opinion has pulled more to the right of late. That naturally triggered a comment string that centered around the role of faith in one's view and of legislating belief. Surprisingly, it actually turned out to be one of the most civil debates I've seen on his site, and one I was proud to have participated in.

I've thought about that discussion several times since then, and while the topic at that time was abortion, I've realized that my comments then pretty well encapsulated my thinking on many issues and, unintentionally, provided an explanation for one of the reasons for why I blog, limited as my contribution may be.

I've extracted the main portion of my comment from that day (addressing another commenter, not Mitch) and posted it here to help me remember, on nights like these when I'm really tired, why I keep doing this.

... I merely want to address your view that the abortion issue is an issue of faith. It is a matter of faith, but not necessarily “faith” as in being Catholic, Evangelical or Humanist, but in terms of “belief.” The underlying point I took from Mitch’s post is that what people “believe” about human life appears to be changing, and ultimately what a society believes is reflected in its laws (for good or ill). Inevitably some beliefs are going to be in the minority. Thank goodness the vast majority today believes it’s wrong to hang people from trees, though a few still say it’s okay to threaten to do so, while even fewer would be willing to do it. (At what point prosecution should enter into that example is a topic for another day).

It’s not a process of legislating faith (or belief), but of faith/belief affecting legislation. The fact that some will disagree or be offended by the result is not reason in and of itself to not act on the greater will. Thus the ribbon, as Mitch says, is moved. That does not mean, however, that the minority doesn’t have the right to protest, or to work continually to change the beliefs of the majority, even to the point of risk and sacrifice (since risk and sacrifice are what differentiates belief from emotion). Though I may be in a minority on a number of issues (or because I’m in the minority on a number of issues), I thank God (not goodness) that we live in a society where these beliefs can still be contested.